Airport retailers team up with NCR

DULUTH, USA: NCR Corporation will install its digital download kiosks at airports across the United States through InMotion Entertainment stores, bringing easy, affordable access to a wide choice of digital movies, television programs and music tracks for the first time to airport travelers on the goInMotion Entertainment is the U.S.’s largest airport retailer of electronics and entertainment. Each year, more than 750 million travelers pass by InMotion’s 57 stores in 35 airports.

Through kiosks developed in partnership with MOD Systems, Inc., NCR will rent and sell entertainment titles to airport travelers who will download the content to portable Secure Digital (SD) memory cards and USB memory sticks. Consumers can use (and reuse) their own SD memory cards to download video titles or purchase one in the InMotion store. Video content can be played on Windows PCs, including laptops, netbooks and tablets, with additional consumer electronics device support planned for later this year. Music tracks can be loaded onto any USB storage device and, eventually, directly to portable MP3 players.

Travelers will be able to download entertainment content from the kiosk in about the same amount of time it takes to buy a magazine or newspaper at an airport news stand. Music downloads take, on average, just a few seconds and movie downloads often take less than two minutes. Up to four kiosks will be installed in each store to accommodate multiple customers at once.

“The modern airport traveler has limited and often inflexible options for entertainment on the go,” said Alex Camara, vice president and general manager, NCR Entertainment. “DVDs and CDs cannot be played on many portable devices. Movies and music can be downloaded to portable devices at home, but once travelers leave home, purchase options have been limited. Streaming content often cannot be accessed in air, and never without expensive fees. We are bringing faster and easier entertainment choices to consumers while they are on the go. This new technology — in partnership with MOD Systems — brings consumers simple, affordable and flexible access to entertainment.”

The NCR and MOD Systems kiosks will offer thousands of new release and catalog movie titles and television episodes from major and independent studios, and hundreds of thousands of MP3 music tracks from all major music labels and several independents. Because they’re digital, the video and music titles are never out of stock and rental movies do not need to be returned.

“MOD Systems is excited to bring its partnership with NCR into the consumer market, and reach busy travelers through a relationship with InMotion — the leader in airport entertainment,” said Anthony Bay, chairman and CEO of MOD Systems. “Until now, retailers have not had an opportunity to capture the tremendous business opportunity in digital entertainment. Our solution with NCR gives retailers a slice of the growing digital market while offering the latest content for their customers to enjoy on the devices they travel with everyday.”